


Resign

by caketoss



Category: StarCraft
Genre: Blood, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:22:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6429886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caketoss/pseuds/caketoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiranis finds Vortanul at his darkest hour, and offers him a different perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resign

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in an RP-verse with @atargatisxxelaris (tumblr), and alludes to past events canon to that verse.

_Stop. Stop. Stop. STOP!_

Wrought with his own screams, Vortanul’s mind shuddered under the force of his emotions. He was suffocating, eyes squeezed shut, his face pressed to the cool, damp stone floor. [[MORE]] Hands clasped protectively above his head, Vortanul reveled in the contrasting sensation of heat pouring over his cords and crests, coating his face in a grim mask of purple, mineral-rich fluid; his life’s blood. 

_Vortanul!_

He froze. That voice, high and sweet and laden with affectionate longing and just a touch of desperation… Kiranis. Vortanul wasn’t safe here. Kiranis had heard him, was coming to him now, closing in on him fast - he could see the man rushing through the streets in his mind, his lithe body darting deftly through the crowd, psionically fixed on Vortanul’s position. And yet, Vortanul was powerless, rooted to the spot he knelt, curled over his knees and trembling upon the bath house floor. Kiranis couldn’t find him like this, and yet his psionic cries had summoned him here - cries that he hadn’t intended to broadcast for the entire town square to hear. No, he had come here alone, to meditate, to contemplate, and to perhaps rid himself of some of the sin that clung in lascivious tatters to his worn and battered soul. He was losing it, desperate to make a change, and yet today it seemed the gods wouldn’t grant him that. Instead, they would curse him with the presence of the last man on all of Aiur he desired to see. Kiranis himself was at the root of his desire to come to the bath house in the first place - the traumas they’d shared haunted him, plagued him, made him question the truth of the primal nature at the core of his being. 

Vortanul heart the soft, hurried patter of slippered feet come rushing into the hall, accompanied by nimble tendrils of psionic energy that arced outwards; searching, seeking Vortanul’s presence. A moment later, Kiranis was on him, skidding to a halt as he was stunned into silence by the sight that greeted him. 

Kiranis gasped. Vortanul had straightened up, seated upon bent knees, his calves and feet tucked neatly beneath his body. His arms and hands, coated thickly with blood from his elbows down, hung limply at his sides, knuckles resting lightly on the floor below. And his face… Vortanul’s face was streaked with his blood, the dark fluid contrasting in ghastly fashion with twin glittering sapphires beneath his brow. A pang of horror shot through Kiranis’s hearts as his gaze settled on the deep parallel slices running the length of the zealot’s forearms. Vortanul had done this to himself. 

The massive weight of Vortanul’s aura, dangerous and imposing, caused Kiranis to tremble. He meant to scare him off, to force him away, leaving Vortanul to his own devices. But Kiranis was not afraid. Vortanul had done his worst to Kiranis in the past - nothing the zealot could bring down upon him in this moment could possibly hold a candle to that terrible day when Vortanul had nearly killed him. 

And Kiranis suspected it was that day, that horrific, drug-fueled encounter at the behest of their Tal'darim captors that had led Vortanul down the path of self-destruction. He could feel the guilt, the shame, the consuming self-hatred pouring from the zealot, seated stone-still, his wraith-like presence spilling forth to drown them both in the small, bare antechamber they occupied. But there was something else lurking there, something separate - their past had not been the sole reason Vortanul had come here, something new, something raw had triggered him. Something Vortanul shrouded angrily beneath the veil of his mind the moment Kiranis had sensed it. 

“Vortanul…” Trying hard to push his rising anxiety aside, Kiranis gingerly approached Vortanul. His muscles twitched, ready to take flight at the first sign Vortanul might lash out. But he didn’t. Tenuously, Kiranis knelt before the zealot, small and slender hands reaching, resting on the soft, blood-stained silk robe covering Vortanul’s massive thighs. Still, Vortanul did not move, physically or mentally. His aura remained steady, laid bare and ashamed beneath the crushing weight of his guilt. Vortanul wanted this - wanted to feel every last shred of his shame consume him, until nothing remained, until he could no longer feel anything at all. 

Sensing the potent charge beneath Vortanul’s consciousness, Kiranis wisely elected not to pry this time around. Instead, he bent forward at the waist, resting his smooth crests in Vortanul’s lap, pressed gently into the taut, silk-swathed flesh of his stomach. Kiranis let his eyes fall shut, a soft smile pulling at the corners as he lost himself in the zealot’s heady, intoxicating scent that pooled generously between his thighs. Kiranis would never forget that scent - it had filled the terrazine-laced air that day, drawing him under the zealot’s spell even as Vortanul had been forced to fuck him within an inch of his life. With a sigh, Kiranis wished for a way to convince Vortanul that he’d forgiven him. He knew Vortanul hadn’t taken him by his own volition; the zealot had never even had a chance to resist. They had both been victims that day. Even lost as he’d been to the effects of the terrazine, Kiranis had somehow understood it - had felt that primal bond form between them, deep within his hearts. And even as his life’s blood bled out from between his legs, ripped asunder by Vortanul’s assault - Kiranis had felt… protected. He would have been content to die, lost in his bliss, wrapped in Vortanul’s strong, crushing embrace. 

Kiranis felt Vortanul’s aura soften just a touch - he hadn’t attempted to veil his thoughts as he lay in a daze, his head nestled blissfully in the zealot’s lap. Hesitantly, Vortanul softly brushed against Kiranis’s mind, his psionic touch wrought with sadness, regret, and a guilty, deep-seated affection. Kiranis reached back, his psionic embrace settling firmly around Vortanul’s mind. So he’d felt it too, then - the primal bond between two mates, dominant and submissive, that hearkened back ages, before thousands of years of evolution transformed the protoss into the magnificently refined beings of the present day. Those roots were still there, ever-present, brought to the fore by the harrowing and tragic circumstances of their first joining. 

And deep in his hearts, Kiranis hoped it had not been their last. 

Rising to his feet, Kiranis extended a hand to Vortanul. And for a moment, the zealot simply stared. Kiranis was resplendent, his angelic form glowing in the dampened rays of sunlight bouncing between the marble walls around them. His light, airy robes billowed dramatically in the warm, steamy breeze that filtered through the open-air maze of chambers of the bath house, the sheer garment clinging sweetly to the sharp contours of his slender frame. His aura was welcoming and sweet, beckoning Vortanul to come, to allow him to mend his wounds, to wash away the blood that painted his face with the terrible mask that reflected so poignantly the pain that rose up to consume him. Perhaps, Kiranis mused, they could heal together, find comfort in the deep, profound understanding that they alone shared. 

And for now, Vortanul agreed. 

Taking Kiranis’s hand in his own, Vortanul rose silently to his feet, following the pilot’s lead out of the bath house. And as they took to the sun-baked cobbled streets, Vortanul sighed, the warm afternoon sunlight working to nourish him, to ease some of the tension knotted in his broad shoulders. Perhaps Kiranis was right. And Vortanul was willing to try. 


End file.
